The good news for former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) is that his lawsuit was able to get some additional ballots counted in Minnesota. The bad news for Coleman is that most of those voters backed Al Franken.

Democrat Al Franken today extended his lead over Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate election, after the counting of about 350 formerly rejected absentee ballots this morning.

Franken captured 198 of the ballots, while Coleman took 111. The ballots added 87 votes to Franken's recount lead, enlarging his margin over Coleman to 312.

The result makes it even more likely that, barring an unforeseen circumstance, Franken will prevail in the election lawsuit that Coleman filed in January to contest the Democrat's 225-vote recount lead. The three-judge panel presiding over the case has not said when it will issue a final decision.

Of course, once the three-judge panel delivers yet another blow to Coleman, the Republicans attorneys have already begun work on an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. From there, with support from the national party, Coleman's legal team is likely to keep this going through the federal courts, too.

ST. PAUL – A three-judge state panel Monday declared Al Franken, a Democrat, the victor in a Senate race here that has dragged Minnesota through prolonged litigation and recounts. The panel dismissed a challenge by Norm Coleman, the Republican who had held the seat, to a count that left the two men separated by 312 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.

“I would call on Senator Coleman to allow me to get to work as soon as possible,” Mr. Franken said after the ruling.

But that seems unlikely. Lawyers for Mr. Coleman immediately announced that they would appeal the decision to the state’s highest court.

The promise of additional litigation means that Minnesota could go without a second senator for weeks, and potentially months, before a victor is certified in the race.

The drumbeat is growing louder for former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman to drop his long-shot appeal of the state's prolonged recount.

In the wake of a three-judge panel declaring that Al Franken was the leading vote-getter of the U.S. Senate election, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough offered a preemptive and withering criticism of Coleman's likely appeal of that decision to the state Supreme Court.

"Seriously. Norm, I like you. You lost. Okay," he said. "Can we seat a senator so Amy [Klobuchar] doesn't have to do the job of two Senators? It is seriously not fair to constituents in Minnesota to drag this out any longer. It is over Norm, okay. It is over."

"When are Republicans going to give up the ghost on this?" Scarborough asked before his mini diatribe.

A poll released Wednesday reveals Minnesotans, by and large, want Republican Norm Coleman to concede the state's U.S. Senate race to Democrat Al Franken.

Public Policy Polling said its survey indicated 63 percent say Coleman should call it a day rather than continue to fight in court, USA Today reported. That percentage includes "almost all of Franken and (independent candidate) Dean Barkley's supporters, as well as a third of respondents who voted for Coleman last fall," the polling organization said.

Fifty-nine percent said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, should certify Franken the winner and he should be seated immediately.

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

Former Sen. Norm Coleman is rapidly becoming the poster child for one of the great ailments of the United States: self-absorbed pursuit of one's "rights," coupled with complete disregard for one's responsibilities.

And as added damage to Republicans, five long months after Minnesota's senatorial election, Coleman is intentionally obstructing democracy for the sake of short-term partisan politics in his continued drive to overturn election results.

The point isn't that Coleman reasonably expects, anymore, to be reseated as U.S. senator from Minnesota. The point is to keep Al Franken from being seated.

Republican Goal Is to Not Seat an Elected Democrat. Conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) recently crowed, "Every day in the Senate without Al Franken is a great day!" Reports City Pages about Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, "Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November's elections could take 'years' to resolve."

As I understand it he has lost all the privileges of a sitting Senator. His only income would be retirement monies. More importantly, there is no office or salaries for staff. The people of Minnesota are indeed getting the shaft courtesy of the Repugs. The shame of all this is the third party candidate that brought this race so close was much more liberal than Franken. Coleman is on the downhill side of a very large losing effort. This lack of representation should be cause to fast track any further judicial review, at the state or federal level, since at this point only points of law need be considered not finding of fact. This is how the War Chimp got appointed in 2000.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

Recently, on the front of Open Left, I critiqued the DSCC's "petition" asking Norm Coleman to get out -- saying there was no "theory of change" about why people taking that action would have any impact.

To be constructive, I gave a free piece of advice to the DSCC on how to organize people strategically: ask people to give $1/day until Norm goes away. If Republicans in DC saw the DSCC's warchest growing by the day, their incentives would reverse -- instead of telling Norm to keep going, they'd tell him to get lost.

The DSCC didn't take that advice. But Howard Dean's Democracy for America was all about it, and partnered with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (which I co-founded) to make it happen at NormDollar.com. Instead of raising money to help generic Democrats, we're raising it to support bold progressives in 2010.

MINNEAPOLIS — If the state Supreme Court doesn’t declare Norm Coleman the winner of Minnesota’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, he’ll take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the head of the national Republican Party.

If the court, which hears arguments in the case on June 1, rules in favor of Al Franken, "then it’s going to the federal courts," said Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Asked over the weekend if Coleman should concede to Franken if the Democrat is declared the winner, Steele replied, "no, hell no. Whatever the outcome, it’s going to get bumped to the next level. This does not end until there’s a final ruling that speaks to whether or not those votes that have not been counted should be counted. And Norm Coleman will not, will not jump out of this race before that."

Norm Coleman's appeal of his defeat in the Minnesota election trial has not yet been argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court, but the two campaigns are busy litigating yet another point: How much Coleman's campaign will have to reimburse the Franken camp for legal costs under the loser-pays provision of the election law.

As of now, and as determined by the court clerk, Coleman will owe Franken about $94,000 for trial-related fees. Team Franken had asked for $161,000, which was then reduced by the clerk after the Coleman camp objected that some of these costs either didn't qualify or weren't sufficiently itemized.

This hardly begins to cover the millions that have been spent on legal fees, but it's one more thing for Coleman to worry about.

Minnesota's Senate race now comes down to five votesBy PAT DOYLE, Star Tribune

Last update: May 30, 2009 - 9:16 PM

Now it comes down to five votes.

Almost seven months after a U.S. Senate election that was too close to call, five justices of the Minnesota Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on whether problems with absentee ballots justify reversing a lower-court ruling that declared DFLer Al Franken a 312-vote winner over Republican Norm Coleman.

Partisans across America will be watching, pronouncing judgment on a thousand blogs. The case may cast a blinding national spotlight on the state Supreme Court.

A decision upholding the lower-court ruling could end the protracted struggle and allow Franken to join the Senate, giving Democrats an invincible majority. A ruling for Coleman wouldn't return him to the Senate, but could keep his hopes alive and delay a final decision for months.

Earlier this morning, right after the Minnesota Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Norm Coleman's appeal of his defeat in the Senate election trial, the attorneys for the two sides -- and Norm himself -- briefly took questions from reporters. The question on everybody's mind: Is this finished yet?

Norm Coleman"We've come to an obviously critical point in this process," said Coleman. "It's more than about process, it's been about the opportunity to ensure that over 4,000 Minnesotans whose votes have not been counted to have their votes counted. I don't know what it's in those ballots, but if those 4,000 voters had lived in a different area, their votes would have been counted."

Note Coleman's claim that he does not know what's in the 4,000 rejected ballots (out of about 11,000 total) that his campaign selected. No rational observer of this process would believe such a claim if it had come from either side -- both campaigns clearly engaged in a thorough process of cherry-picking, selecting ballots where they either knew for sure that it was a vote for themselves, or had a decent idea based on geography. Coleman's legal team even made a reference to geography in one of their filings.

A reporter asked Coleman whether he'll appeal to federal courts if he loses here. He's apparently going to wait and see. "Again, let's see what the court does," Coleman replied. "Let's see what the decision is. At this point my firm hope, fervent hope, is to enfranchise over 4,000 more Minnesotans."

Another reporter asked: So how long will this all take? "I think the question, the most important question is, how long it will take to ensure that we enfranchise 4,000 Minnesotans?" He said. "Those of us who have had the opportunity to govern, we govern with the consent of the governed. And it's difficult to say you have that consent when you have a race that is separated by a few hundred votes, and 4,000 votes have not been counted."

Remember: The actual number here is that roughly 11,000 votes have not been counted. The 4,000 are from the Coleman camp's selected list.